Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(Irish) feelings of nausea; thus have the gawks, to feel sick, give the gawks, to sicken.

1996		(con. 1950s) C. Kenneally Maura’s Boy 114: Nobody wanted to be behind Whacker, convinced he had the mange [...] the spoon would give us ‘a fit of the gawks’.
1996		D. Healy Bend for Home 190: Peadar, he shouted [...] come back here! But the storyteller said I have the gawks and continued down the road. [Ibid.] 208: I have the dry gawks, said the policeman.
2015		L. McInerney Glorious Heresies 105: ‘Seriously, Georgie, you’re giving me the gawks’.